Key Highlights
- Or at least that was how it seemed in October.
- Already, though, the picture has begun to change.
- This was the year of the backlash, and then a bit of a backlash to the backlash. For almost two decades football had accepted the guardiolista consensus.
- Football was about possession, about the press, but most of all about position, about the careful manipulation of space.
- Much-improved pitches meant first touches could be taken for granted: players receiving the ball didn’t have to focus on getting it under control but could instead be parsing their options.
